Understanding Primary Liability Insurance

Primary Liability Insurance is where you are covered against a loss from the liability that you could otherwise be exposed to if an injured party in an accident chose to pursue a legal claim against you.

This type of cover is especially important with regards to trucking insurance because the potential liability from any accident is that much greater.

It is a federally mandated requirement to carry primary liability insurance if you wish to operate a truck commercially in the United States, and can be considered as a base level of cover that you need if you want to drive a truck.

Official statistics show that there are over 500,000 accidents that involve trucks in the United States every year, and that one in every eight traffic deaths on the roads in the US involved a truck.

Of this number, some 98% were fatalities to the people in the vehicle other than the truck. So, given those numbers, it is easy to see why it is so important to secure primary liability insurance cover.

If you are involved in an accident then the likelihood that the other party will be the “injured party” is considerably greater than in any other type of vehicle.

Primary Liability Insurance is not designed to cover any damage to your truck. It is also not cover for vandalism, theft or fire, and will not cover your trailer. So you need to be sure to take out extra cover for those.

What it will do however is protect you in the event that you have an accident and injured a member of the public in any way. It will also cover damage that may have been caused to public property, such as where you crash and do damage to the road or a local underpass for example.

This is much more of a consideration with trucks because their sheer size and scale makes it much more likely that if you do have an accident that considerable damage will be done to the road surface and the surrounding physical environment.

You should carefully read your insurance policy and become aware of the specific details of the terms and conditions to make a claim, as these can differ quite markedly between insurance companies.

Trucking accidents are common in the United States with over 2/3rds of accidents happening in broad daylight, so don’t neglect your primary liability insurance cover or you could end up regretting it.